On Wed, Mar 28, 2007 at 06:19:47AM -0700, Matt Mahoney wrote: > > Is this a falsifyable theory? > > Unfortunately, no. You would have to prove that the universe is not > computable, for example, that your observations are a function of the halting
You would have to prove the existence of a extremely large (by our measures) computational process existing outside of the spacetime, and operating on a cost function very different from this spacetime. I don't see how this is falsifyable. > probability Omega or some other uncomputable number. I don't know that that > would even be mathematically possible. The question is not about mathematics, but about empirical physics. Does your theory predict anything which other competitors don't? > But everything we know about it suggests that the universe is computable. For If it's computable, it doesn't mean that it's actually computed. > one, the universe has finite entropy*. For another, Occam's Razor seems to > work in practice, consistent with AIXI's assumption of a computable > environment (abductive reasoning, I know). For a third, there is nothing > going on in the human brain that we believe is not computable, so it would be > impossible to distinguish reality from a simulation, and we are simply > programmed to reject such a possibility. I don't reject such a possibility. But it's not science. > *The entropy of the universe is of the order T^2 c^5/hG ~ 10^122 bits, where T > is the age of the universe, c is the speed of light, h is Planck's constant > and G is the gravitational constant. By coincidence (or not?), each bit would > occupy the volume of a proton. (The physical constants do not depend on any A proton is a damn complex system. Don't see how you could equal it with one mere bit. > particle properties). -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org";>leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?list_id=11983
